Hooded blankets help embroidery business boom

Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Jill Weiss has a hit on her hands. And if you go to any gymnastics meets in the area you're likely to see it on the shoulders of young gymnasts and their parents.

Weiss' invention, the Snuggle Blanket, is simple enough - a cozy fleece blanket with a hood - but it has been her key to success with SportStitch, the custom embroidery business she founded out of her home about three years ago.

Weiss now owns and operates both SportStitch and Fat City, a local screen printing and embroidery firm.

Weiss interest in sewing started shortly after the birth of her son Josh, now 18.

"My husband said I could get a sewing machine if I learned how to use it," she said.

She started small, sewing baby clothes and doll clothes. About five years ago she purchased a small embroidery machine.

Soon, SportStitch was born.

"It was started with, 'Boy, wouldn't it be cool to go to meets and personalize things,'" she said.

With that small machine, she began attending gymnastics meets where she personalized T-shirts. Her product line grew to include sweatshirts and then bags.

"Then I started these blankets and there was no turning back," she said. "It just exploded."

Soon, she found herself going to band competitions, wrestling tournaments and other events, including a recent ice hockey tournament in New Milford.

While Weiss does use some designs created by others, many come from her own imagination.

"Three-fourths of the fun is coming up with the designs," she said.

The designs are tailored to the sporting event she is attending. At a recent hockey tournament, one of the more popular sweatshirts featured an ominous looking hockey player with the slogan "No Mercy."

That stands in contrast to her biggest sellers on the gymnastics circuit, which include slogans like "If gymnastics was easy, it would be called football."

Eventually, she had to quit working with her husband Andrew at AA Appliance Repair, where she ran the business end of the company.

In June, Weiss purchased Fat City, a nearly 25-year-old screen printing business in New Milford.

"My husband saw an ad in the paper that it was for sale. I had been thinking about adding screen printing but I was working out of my home. It was the right place at the right time," she said.

Based on her workload, Weiss believes that she made the right decision to purchase the business, which came with a strong local clientele.

"The history of Fat City was that it would go down so much in the winter that they would shut down and I don't see that happening," she said. "We've got boxes of stuff and we're trying to keep up with demand."

Weiss attributes that to a synthesis between the two businesses. While Fat City handles screen printing and embroidery for local businesses and sports teams, it also takes care of much of the embroidery work for SportStitch - embroidering designs and slogans on sweatshirts, blankets and other items. SportStitch then takes these items on the road nearly every weekend to sell and customize with customers' names.

Weiss said that her business is unique in that nearly all of her dozen or so employees are working mothers.

"We arrange everybody's schedule so we can work around our kids' activities," she said.

In part because of that willingness to be flexible, Weiss said her company has a team-like approach.

"Yes, I'm heading it, but it's very much a team effort. They're my friends as well as my employees and I don't know what I'd do without them," she said, noting that employees volunteer to complete orders on their days off and even holidays. "That's not something you get from employees. That's something you get from friends. I feel they believe in what we are doing and are willing to go above and beyond."

In addition to her regular employees, Weiss also employs her daughters Brittany, 15, and Tori, 11, as well as family friend
Brad West
, Brittany's classmate, when she goes to meets.

"I pay my employees well, but perks are a big deal, especially when you're 15 years old. So we always stay at nice hotels - it has to have a pool, it has to have a Jacuzzi - and I always take them to Outback," she said.

With such dedicated employees, Weiss believes she is well prepared for whatever growth comes her way.

"It's going in steps, so everything's kind of been a natural rejoinder to the next step," she said.

The next step, according to Weiss, is to begin going to meets and tournaments outside of the New England area - she has already received interest from as far away as Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

"The ideal goal would be to have events two to a weekend," she said.

She also plans to unveil "SportStitch in a Box," a consignment program that would allow her to ship her items to meets that she can't go to personally and have them sold by somebody else.

"We knew things were going to take off, but we had no idea they were going to take off like this," she said.